Aldebaran Robotics unveils Nao Next Gen robot

Looking for a little company via an AI companion? If the idea of Sony’s AIBO robotic dog does not appeal to you, you might be interested in taking a look at Aldebaran Robotics who has released the second generation Nao robot which they have fittingly dubbed the Nao Next Gen.

As you can see in the photo above, the Nao Next Gen is a pretty cute looking robot and it has come with several hardware and software upgrades. For starters it will be powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip which is powerful enough to handle two simultaneous HD video streams embedded into the robot.

The team behind the Nao Next Gen has also added Nuance voice recognition software to the mix to allow for better and more accurate interaction. It can even perform “word spotting” where it will respond to certain key words within a sentence or a conversation. The robot has also received a new walking algorithm which apparently will allow it to walk faster, and even even detects when the robot is about to fall over, which will then maneuver its arms into a position where it can pick itself up from the floor easily.

If all of that sounded pretty cool, you can head on down to Aldebaran Robotic’s website for more information or you can check out the video below to see the Nao Next Gen robot in action.